New Defender's Study Bible Notes

11 error of Balaam. Like Balaam (Numbers 22–24; II Peter 2:15-16), they use their religious connections not for the honor of God or the spread of His Word, but for their own personal agendas, whether money, pleasure, or power.

12 twice dead. In contrast to born-again believers, who are occasionally called “twice-born” men and women, there are some people who already are “twice dead.” That is, not only are they “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), like all other people inheriting Adam’s sin-nature, but they are already participating in the “second death” (Revelation 20:6). These are, from the context in Jude, those apostate teachers who turn “the grace of our God into lasciviousness, . . . denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). They have fully understood the true gospel, and willfully repudiated it, so that, for them, “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:26, see note; also see notes on Hebrews 6:4-6).